Struggling to Shine: Can Lotte’s Han Dong-hee Overcome His Disappointing 2026 Season?

Translation result ▲ Lotte’s Han Dong-hee faces ongoing struggles in his comeback season, despite high expectations ⓒ Lotte Giants

[SPOTV News=Reporter Kim Tae-woo] Lotte manager Kim Tae-hyung made a decisive move from the dugout in the fifth inning of the April 25 game against KIA at Gwangju Kia Champions Field. He pulled starting third baseman Han Dong-hee (27) and sent Park Seung-wook in to play third.

The game had looked winnable for Lotte. After a KIA error in the third allowed Lotte to escape the inning and take a 2-0 lead, they gave up a run in the same frame but added another on Yoo Kang-nam’s solo homer in the fourth to go up 3-1. Coming off a loss on the 24th, Lotte needed a win, and the coaching staff opted to tighten the defense. Han showed no obvious physical issue.

One play in the third may have lingered in the coaches’ minds. With Lotte up 2-0 and one out, Dale singled to center. After the second out, facing Kim Sun-bin, the bench shifted the defense in and told Han to play closer to the line. With two outs, the priority was to prevent extra-base hits even if it meant conceding a single.

At first it looked like the strategy would work. Kim Sun-bin ripped a ball toward third along the left-field foul line—exactly the kind of play the moved-in third baseman could handle. Han failed to corral it and the hit rolled into a double. Dale, who had already broken on contact, rounded third and scored.

▲ Han Dong-hee being replaced during the fifth-inning defensive substitution in the April 25 Gwangju KIA game ⓒ Kwak Hye-mi

That defensive change ultimately didn’t derail KIA’s rally. Park Jae-hyun followed with an RBI double that dropped to the left of the left fielder. After Dale’s sacrifice bunt, Kim Ho-ryung hit a grounder to third and Kim Sun-bin drew a walk. Kim Do-young then cleared the right fielder’s head with a two-run double to put KIA ahead. That sequence had little to do with the third-base spot. Lotte gave up three runs in the fifth and couldn’t recover, falling 3-4.

Still, the substitution underscored Han’s struggles this season. He entered the year with high expectations but has underwhelmed on both sides of the ball. Being pulled in the fifth inning—essentially the middle of the game—sends a message about the coaching staff’s current confidence in his defense. His defensive metrics this year sit below the league average for third basemen.

Han has long had a tendency to make defensive mistakes. The expectation was that he would clean those up while contributing at the plate; so far this year, he hasn’t done that. After a mid-2024 stint with the military club Sangmu and a dominant return in the Futures League, fans hoped to see that power-hitting version of Han again. It hasn’t appeared, and Lotte’s patience is being tested.

▲ Han Dong-hee hasn’t hit a single home run this year and is struggling with an unusually high number of ground balls ⓒ Yonhap News

At the plate, the results have been poor. In the April 24 game at Gwangju he went 0-for-4, including a double play and two strikeouts, and in the April 25 game he had no impact in three plate appearances before being lifted. Over his last 10 games he’s hitting just .139. For the season he has 18 hits in 78 at-bats—four doubles and zero home runs. Despite often hitting cleanup, he has only four RBIs and has grounded into four double plays. His batting average with runners in scoring position is a meager .158; the numbers look worse than they read.

Han’s profile is built on power, and that’s how he’s always compensated for defensive lapses. He showed it in previous seasons—17 homers in both 2020 and 2021, 14 in 2022—and during his Sangmu tenure. But this year his slugging percentage has dropped to a career low (.054), while his ground-ball rate is at a career high. He’s nearly doubling grounders over fly balls. The familiar offensive punch that defines his game hasn’t shown up.

Through 19 games his overall average has dipped to .247, and analysts flagged this stretch as a make-or-break period for the season. If he can’t find a fix, a stint in the minors looks possible; if he responds, he can wash away the slow start and help Lotte find momentum. Tagged as a potential heir to Lee Dae-ho since his youth, Han isn’t satisfied with average results. Fans and the club will be watching closely to see if a dugout timeout helps him reset.

▲ Han Dong-hee still carries high expectations as fans wait for him to turn things around ⓒ Yonhap News